What Is Acceptable Behavior?

People participate in a "MeToo" protest march for survivors of sexual assault and their supporters in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S. on November 12, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

Reuters: Poll: Hugs and dirty jokes - Americans differ on acceptable behavior

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans differ widely in their views of what constitutes sexual harassment, with age and race as well as gender throwing up the dividing lines, posing a challenge for those who police for such conduct in the workplace.

The issue has been thrown into the national spotlight as a string of prominent men in U.S. politics, entertainment and the media have been felled by allegations of sexual misconduct in recent months.

A Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll, released on Wednesday, asked more than 3,000 American adults to consider eight different scenarios and then prompted them to decide if they would personally label each to be an example of sexual harassment. The variation in responses showed a need for employers to spell out expected standards, employment experts said.

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WNU Editor: The culture is changing. 20 years ago I argued with my brother on how inappropriate President Clinton's sexual behavior was .... his response was that it was about sex, and it is no one's business. An opinion that was also shared by many in the media .... and by feminists themselves at the time. Today .... if he voiced that opinion .... he would be crucified. And as for today's media and feminist groups .... a complete 180 from 20 years ago.

Australian Army Captain Is Recommending That Prostitutes Be Permitted To Visit Soldiers On The Front Line To 'Relieve Stress'

An Australian army captain currently serving in the Middle East has written an opinion piece requesting the defence forces allow sex workers to help soldiers 'relieve stress'

Daily Mail: Australian army captain recommends soldiers should be visited on the front lines by PROSTITUTES to 'relieve stress'

* Australian army captain says sex workers should be integrated to help soldiers
* Captain Sally Williamson wrote opinion piece for Land Power Forum website
* She wants to see defence forces embrace the sex industry to help serving troops

An Australian army captain currently serving in the Middle East has written an opinion piece requesting the defence forces allow sex workers to help soldiers 'relieve stress'

Captain Sally Williamson wrote the article for the Land Power Forum, a website run by the Australian military giving past and present servicemen and women a chance to express their thoughts and offer ideas.

Capt. Williamson posted the story, titled 'Sex And War - A Conversation Army Has To Have', in early November but it was removed days later after fierce scrutiny.

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Update: Army captain calls for prostitutes to visit soldiers on the front line to relieve stress (Daily Telegraph)

WNU Editor: I am surprised that it is a women that is bringing this up.  I am also willing to bet that the brass is not going to accept her proposal.

Why Is The Pentagon Uncomfortable Talking About Sex? (Podcast)

Matthew Gault, War Is Boring: The Pentagon Is Terrified of Sex

Podcast—sex and sensibility in the U.S. military.

In 2013, the White House ordered the Pentagon to open combat roles to women and gave the military a three-year deadline. As women take on more roles in the U.S. military, both on the front lines and in leadership, the Pentagon must face an issue it has long ignored — relations between men and women.

Tailhook and the Marines United Scandal reveal a military culture that can be at odds with women and their roles alongside men.

But the complications don’t end there. This week on War College, journalist Kevin Knodell walks us through the U.S. military’s general discomfort with talking about sex, according to female service members he spoke with.

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WNU Editor: The podcast is here.

U.K. Ministry Of Defense Is Warning Top Officials To Not Have Sex With Beautiful Young Women In China Or Russia

RIA Novosti/Evgeny Biyatov

Don't Have Sex With Beautiful Young Women, MoD Warns Senior Officials Before Postings To Russia And China -- Daily Mail

* Russian security services 'may use honey traps to blackmail personnel'
* British officials warned to avoid sexual encounters in leaked report
* Tactic was used extensively and effectively during the Cold War

Top military officials have been warned not to have sex with attractive women in Russia or China in case they are spies, it has been reported.

A leaked document says agents of the FSB, Russia's intelligence service and successor to the Soviet-era KGB, could attempt to lure British officials into bed and then blackmail them.

The document, the Ministry of Defence Manual of Security, warns senior officers that the FSB, could gain valuable intelligence by exploiting 'knowledge of marital infidelity or sexual activity the target may wish to hide'.

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Update: No sex with Russian or Chinese girls, UK MoD warns deployed staff -- RT

My Comment: If I am reading this right .... the UK is telling its top officials to not have sex with beautiful young girls .... but it is OK to have sex with ugly young girls.

:)

The Brits .... I can never figure them out.

Pentagon: Playboy And Penthouse Are Not Indecent And Are Allowed For Sale At Military Bases

Playboy, Penthouse Reportedly Not Indecent Under Federal Law, Allowed For Sale At Military Posts -- FOX News

Adult magazines like Playboy and Penthouse are reportedly permitted to be sold on military installations because they do not meet the federal definition of indecent material, according to a top Pentagon official.

Frederick Vollrath, assistant secretary of defense for readiness and force management, responded to a complaint from Morality in Media in a July 22 letter by saying that a review board had scrutinized those magazines and determined that “based on the totality of each magazine’s content, they were not sexually explicit under [the federal law],” Military Times reports.

Morality in Media, an anti-pornography group, complained in June about the sale of adult magazine on Department of Defense property.

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More News On Playboy And Penthouse Being Allowed For Sale On Military Bases

DoD: Playboy, Penthouse are not indecent -- Military Times
Pentagon: Playboy and Penthouse Stay -- Government Executive
Defense Department Okays Sales of Magazines Like Playboy and Penthouse on Military Bases -- Bustle
Pentagon Defends Sale of Pornographic Magazines -- CBN

My Comment: I browse through these magazines only for the informative articles. :)

U.S. Military Court: It's Illegal For Anyone In The U.S. Military To Make A Sex Tape

Making A Sex Tape A Crime For Troops, Court Rules -- Army Times

Making a sex tape is a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military’s highest court has ruled.

While it is perfectly legal for civilians to make videos of themselves having sex, service members are prohibited from doing so because it is “both prejudicial to good order and discipline and service discrediting.”

The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruled that making a sex tape — even if it is never distributed and nobody sees it — amounts to having sex in public, according to a decision issued on May 23.

The case stems from the conviction of Staff Sgt. Ivan Goings, an Army medic. A search of his off-post home in Heidelberg, Germany, turned up a video made in 2006 showing him and another man taking turns having consensual sex with an unidentified German woman.

Goings claimed that the 2008 conviction violated his constitutional rights to private sexual activity.

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My Comment: So if your wife or girlfriend is in the mood and wants a sex-tape made .... and you are in the military .... this is a big no-no. Sighhhh .... this makes no sense to me.

Update: A warning from a female soldier on what could be the consequences if you make a personal sex tape that goes public.

The Growing Problem Of U.S. Military Commanders Being Fired Because Of Sexual Misconduct

Scandal: David Petraeus' resignation following his extra-martial affair brought a lot of attention to the sexual dalliances of leading commanders in various branches of the military

One In Every THREE Sacked U.S. Military Commanders Was Fired Because Of Sexual Misconduct -- Daily Mail

At least 30 per cent of military commanders fired over the past eight years lost their jobs because of sexually related offenses, including harassment, adultery, and improper relationships.

The figures follow growing concerns by Defense Department and military leaders over declining ethical values among U.S. forces.

They also highlight the pervasiveness of a problem that came into sharp relief because of the resignation of one of the Army's most esteemed generals, David Petraeus, and the investigation of a second general, John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

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My Comment: You have to wonder if this is a big problem .... or a few isolated events. My guess.... it is a huge problem and we are just getting the tip of the iceberg.

No Sex In The Barracks.

CSM Marvin L. Hill

No Sex? Permission To Speak Freely, Sir. -- Laura Cannon, Washington Post

Laura Cannon, a 2001 West Point graduate, is writing a memoir on her military service titled “War Virgin.” She blogs at WarVirgin.com.
 

West Pointers are human beings, even those with names such as David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell. I think I have the standing to make this declaration, because I’m a fellow graduate. West Point is long on molding military officers, but a bit short on humanity. Its mission statement stresses the intent to commit every graduate to a career of professional excellence and service, embodying the values of “duty, honor and country.” How does West Point do that?
Here’s how: Rules! Hundreds upon hundreds of rules that govern every facet of human conduct imaginable, including my favorite: no sex in the barracks.

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My Comment: This is definitely NOT your father's military.

Watching Porn Is A Threat To National Security

Executive Branch Porn Problem -- Lori Handrahan, Washington Times

Bureaucrats risk national security breaches.

Allen W. Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) wrote in “The Craft of Intelligence,” “sex and hard-headed intelligence operations rarely mix well.” Perhaps the boys at the Pentagon need a refresher course.

This past week, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency warned its staff not to view porn on U.S. government computers. The Pentagon also released a report on April’s Secret Service Colombian scandal. The two are connected.

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My Comment: I doubt that government employees will stop watching porn on government time. But by installing filters and firing employees who are caught and then shamed in public .... will be one way to certainly curtail it.

The Long And Sordid History Of Sex And Espionage

Sex And Espionage: A Long And Sordid History -- Tim Lister, CNN

Call it the flip-side to torture: using seduction to extract valuable information. It’s as old as the Old Testament – literally. Delilah used deception and seduction to find out the secret of Samson’s strength. His hair was never to be cut. So off she went to tell the Philistines – and his precious braids were shaved as he slept.

The lure of sex has been the stuff of both spy fiction and real-life scandals ever since.

“Let's face it, historically women — and prostitutes in particularly — have been used to infiltrate or get information," Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said Tuesday, referring to the unfolding scandal over the conduct of Secret Service agents in Colombia.

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My Comment: Men are men .... and women are women .... some things will never change.

Why Are Pentagon Employees Purchasing Child Pornography On Defense Department Computers?

Pentagon To Investigate Hundreds Of Suspected Child Pornography Fans In Its Ranks -- Yahoo News/Upshot

In a reversal, the Pentagon says it will reopen hundreds of cases of alleged purchases of child pornography by Department of Defense employees that Pentagon officials previously declined to investigate, The Upshot has learned.

Earlier this month, The Upshot reported exclusively that in 2007, investigators for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service obtained a list of 264 military service members, civilian employees and contractors for the Department of Defense who had used credit cards or PayPal to purchase access to a child pornography website. But the DCIS, citing scarce resources, pursued only 52 of the names before closing the project -- known as Project Flicker -- in 2008. Since no further public information on the cases was made available, it appears that the other people on the list of suspected child-pornography patrons were able to continue their careers without any interruption that stemmed from the investigation.

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My Comment: Pentagon officials are not above the law. Investigate .... and if there is enough evidence .... prosecute.

There Is No Willingness To Enforce Rules Against The Sex Trade In War Zones

U.S. Policy A Paper Tiger Against Sex Trade In War Zones -- Washington Post

An eight-year-old policy that forbids government contractors and employees to engage in sex trafficking in war zones has proved almost impossible to enforce amid indications that such activities are occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The policy, instituted eight years ago by President George W. Bush and still in effect today, calls for the prosecution of government employees and contractors who engage in trafficking and the suspension or disqualification of companies whose workers do. Bush's get-tough language also threatened criminal prosecutions for solicitation of prostitutes because many of the women are forced into the work.

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My Comment: After 8 years with this rule on the books, the results have been the following ....

"Zero prosecutions," said Martina Vandenberg, a lawyer and former Human Rights Watch investigator, "suggests zero effort to enforce the law."

I guess that sums it all up.

Revisiting The Rules On Deployment Sex

Deployment Sex: The Lowdown -- The Best Defense/Foreign Policy

Here is a note from an Army captain who is serving his country overseas:

While Tom expressed quite a bit of dismay at an apparent upsurge in incidents involving inappropriate relationships in the Canadian Army (Brig. Gen. Daniel Menard, and that other Canadian captain, whatever his name is), I'm not surprised. I think we keep forgetting that human beings have been thinking about and having sex for all of recorded history: you can read it in writings as far back as Ovid and Pietro Aretino.

Even the Greatest Generation, our noble forefathers, were once described by the British as 'over-sexed, over-paid, and over here,' apparently liberating as many European women from the girdle of Nazi oppression as they did from their, eh, you get the point.

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My Comment: An interesting post, but I found the comments at the bottom of the post even more interesting.

No Sex Please. We Are American Soldiers

Court-Martial For Pregnant Soldiers? General Backs Off Under Fire. -- Christian Science Monitor

Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo clarifies his order allowing court-martial for soldiers who become pregnant or who impregnate a colleague in a war zone, saying Tuesday that any punishment is unlikely to come to that.

An American commander in Iraq has backed down on a controversial stance he took last month that threatened court-martial for soldiers who became pregnant or who got someone pregnant.

Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, who commands US forces in the northern sector of Iraq, issued a general order last month in which he stated that getting someone pregnant or becoming pregnant as a way to get out of a deployment could be punishable under the military court system, the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, to include court-martial.

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My Comment: This general is opening a can of worms .... but from a certain perspective he does have a case.